In a conversation with a friend who knows nothing about making recordings, the question came up, "What does a Record Producer do?" I gave an explanation, but felt the question would benefit from having both a fuller explanation, plus some concrete examples. So the following is provided.
Although the recording industry uses the term Producer, likely the term "Director," as used by the film industry, would be clearer to many in understanding what recording producers do.
Note. This explanation is centered around what might be thought of as the traditional recording industry. With the advent of home recording studios in garages, bedrooms and basements, this role has taken on additional and fuzzier definitions.
A way to look at the function of a record producer is via an analogy some people are familiar with. Namely, a General Contractor in charge of getting a new building built. The general contractor has oversight of the entire project, i.e., he/she coordinates the work of a number of specialists to achieve the final building. Specialists that would be involved, likely would include an architect, who like the composer of a song, writes down the plans for the building. In the case of a recording, many composers might just write the medody and lyrics. (But, if the composer is also skilled as an arranger, might also write out a detailed arrangement accompaniment for the song.)
Given the architect's plans for the building, the general contractor identifies what specialists are needed to construct the building, e.g., excavators, foundation laying, framing, electrical, plumbing, interior finnishing, roofing, etc., and arranges for them to work on this project and coordinates their efforts.
Similarly the producer for a recording decides whether an arranger is needed to write an arrangement to flesh out the composer's song. Then given the arrangement, what instrumental and vocal specialists are needed to play/sing the parts of the arrangement. Another question is whether a music director is needed to guide the instrumetalists and vocalists in recording the song. The producer then arranges for such specialists to work on making the recording.
Unless the composer specifies details of an arrangement for how the song should be presented (not common), then the producer (perhaps with an arranger) makes the decisions that shape the overall presentation of the song. This may even include selection of what instrumentalists and/or vocalists play/sing on the recording.
The producer may also decide whether post production processing should be applied. [The term post-production means edits/changes made to the recording with software after the instrumentalists/vocalists have finished recording the song.]
Post-production can consist of numerous things. Examples include: 1) adjusting entrances and exits of individual vocalists or instrumentalists to make them more precisely line up with the rhythm of the song and with each other; 2) whether any of the vocalists or instrumentalists need tuning to make their recording more acoustically correct; and 3) whether the recorded material needs extensive editing to emphasize certain aspects of that track's recording. An example of the latter is the editing done to the guitar tracks of "The Rose" to bring out the picking and minimize the strumming.
While many of these things are executed by others, e.g., arrangers, players, singers, recording engineer; it is the Producer who directs what each of them should do. These processes specified by a producer can make a big difference in the sound of a song.
The following examples are given as illustrations. Each presents a before and after version of a song.
The first is the early simple mix of each song, prepared by a recording engineer as part of a recording session, without the help of a producer. In those situations the engineer's goal was to faithfully reproduce the recording made in that session.
The after example is the same song, reshaped by David years later as producer, who directed reshaping the original recording into a different presentation. These illustrate how a producer can significantly shape what a recording sounds like.
Note. The reshapings by a producer can be achieved by very different actions. Some are simply a remix of the original tracks, where a different sound is acheived by using different amounts and combinations of the existing material. In other examples, some combination of new augmented materials are added and mixed with the original recorded tracks.
The last example is the most extreme. In that case, only the melody and lyrics are kept, i.e., the original track recordings are almost completely replaced, including a new accompaniment, and mostly new vocals. We still used a bit of the original composer's vocals on the ends of the verses and final refrain.
These illustrations do not address other things, like room sound/delay effects, reshaping of the sound using equilization, etc. While the recording engineer is the technician who makes such changes, it is often the producer who directs the sound engineer to implement the sounds as the producer envisions. In that way, the producer is also a bit like the conductor of a large orchestra.
The original rough mix of this song was performed and mixed as a trio, according to the music arrangement used to guide making the recording. The mix incluces all 3 recorded parts together throughout the song.
The remix produced by David, instead starts and ends as a solo. The balance of the other parts, where they are used, is changed to emphasize the melody and the female alto harmony part, dramatizing the pathos of the lyrics. The tenor part is only used as a hint for additional harmonic material, and a variety of post production processing techniques were applied to bring all the parts closely together, and to tune the vocals.
The original of this song was mixed as a trio, as recorded according to the music arrangement used for making the recording. The sound engineer mixed all 3 parts together in a mix. The guitar accompaniment includes a lot of strumming.
The remix produced by David, makes this song start and end as a solo. The second voice singing unison melody is minimized, and the short soprano descant part is made more present. The guitar tracks were extensively edited to emphasize individual note picking, and minimize the strumming. (The extensive editing of the guitar tracks is an example of post production, with the revised tracks provided to the recording engineer for remixing.)
The original of this song was mixed by the recording engineer mostly as written in the hymnal with four verses, as a duet using the melody soprano line and the alto line, plus electronic organ and piano.
Years later, David explored a number of additions to this number, resulting in substantial augmention from the original:
Original accompaniment by composer Kathy Haupt was played on acoustic guitar (electric bass guitar added later) and lead vocal was sung by her, with David providing duet on refrains. This is a simpler arrangement with its own charm.
David undertook having a more complex accompaniment arrangement written and recorded. It used 2 acoustic guitars plus string bass. Only the verses were sung solo by David, with the writer/composer (Kathy Haupt) brought in at the end of each verse. Plus, new arrangements were written and recorded for the refrains, sung by multipart women's harmony, with David and Kathy coming back in for the ending of song.
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